U.S. surgeon general defends Biden vaccine order for businesses
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Sunday defended President Joe Biden's order that large private companies set mandatory vaccine and testing policies for COVID-19. Credit: EPA / Shawn Thew
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday defended a Biden administration order that large companies set mandatory COVID-19 vaccine and testing policies as an "appropriate response" to stem the spread of the delta variant.
"We have to put this in context," Murthy said on ABC's "This Week." "They’re requirements that we put in workplaces and in schools every day to make sure that workplaces and schools are safe."
Murthy appeared on several of the Sunday news shows to defend the new vaccine mandates announced by President Joe Biden on Thursday that drew swift criticism and threats of legal action by several Republican governors.
The new rules are an effort to boost the nationwide vaccination rate by ordering private companies with more than 100 employees to set mandatory vaccine policies or test workers weekly for COVID-19. Biden is also requiring federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated.
Biden argued the aggressive stance is necessary because 80 million unvaccinated Americans are fueling the COVID-19 pandemic. His administration said they can compel testing and vaccine policies through emergency provisions in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
Murthy cited private companies that imposed similar rules, without any federal mandates, and saw vaccination rates rise as examples of the requirements' effectiveness.
He said the "requirements actually work to improve our vaccination rate. This is not an unusual phenomenon."
Opponents of the president's announcement, including Texas' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, have vowed to challenge his authority in federal court. Last week, Abbott on Twitter blasted the vaccine mandate as "an assault on private businesses."
Even Republican lawmakers who supported the COVID-19 vaccine said Biden was overreaching with the new mandates.
"The vaccine itself is life-saving, but this unconstitutional move is terrifying," Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted after the announcement.
Murthy said White House officials believe the policies would withstand constitutional challenges.
"This wouldn’t have been put forward if the president’s administration didn’t believe that it was an appropriate, legal measure to take," Murthy said. The OSHA law "tells the Department of Labor and the administration that they have a responsibility to ensure that the workplace is safe for workers," he said. "And that’s what this measure does."
On CNN, Murthy said many in the business community support the administration orders.
"We know a lot of businesses have welcomed it," he said on "State of the Union." " … If we ultimately want to not only get people back to work, but keep them at work, if we want workers to know, hey, I'm coming back to the workplace and it's going to be safe, these vaccinations will help people do that. And I believe that will not only improve public health but will give people some more peace of mind."
Matt Cohen, president and chief executive of the Long Island Association, a business umbrella group, said last week encouraging vaccines and requiring testing for the virus by larger employers will help the region's economy, which has been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On NBC's "Meet the Press," Murthy said the decision did not represent a flip-flop by Biden. As president-elect, Biden had said he did not support the vaccine mandates on the federal level.
"What they saw in May with the pre-delta version of COVID-19 was that with — when people who were vaccinated, when they got breakthrough infections, that they had a very, very low likelihood of transmitting them, which is one of the reasons they felt comfortable pulling back on mask mandates," Murthy said. "But then things changed. The delta variant came and the delta variant seemed to indicate that vaccinated people who had breakthrough infections would be more likely to spread than those with the alpha variant or prior variants, and that's why they shifted their guidance once again."
In New York State, the percentage of new positive COVID-19 cases has remained fairly consistent over the last week.
Figures released Sunday show 5,447 of 179,025 test results received by the state on Saturday were positive for COVID-19. The seven-day average of positive test results, considered a more consistent measure of cases than the daily percentage, was 3.22% on Saturday and Friday after six straight days of 3.3%
Nassau County accounted for 394 of the new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and there were 520 new positive cases in Suffolk County. The state reported 29 new deaths from COVID-19 on Saturday, including one in Nassau County and three in Suffolk County.
With Robert Brodsky
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Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.
